Trump Hosts Zelensky and European Leaders

President Trump hosted Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, and seven of Europe’s most powerful leaders today at the White House to discuss plans to end the war in Ukraine. Details of any progress toward peace were scarce, but Trump said he was optimistic that they could secure a deal with Russia that would “deter any future aggression against Ukraine.”

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Inside the Oval Office, Trump and Zelensky’s encounter was nothing like the fiery spectacle that emerged out of the Ukrainian president’s last visit. Zelensky wore a black suit instead of his usual military clothing, and he thanked Trump several times. Trump said the U.S. would “be involved” in guaranteeing Ukraine’s security as part of a deal to end the war — a commitment that Zelensky said was critical in ensuring that Russia does not invade again.

The president’s openness to so-called security guarantees seemed to please the European leaders, who had rushed to Washington to voice their support for Ukraine. They, too, smothered Trump in flattery while indicating an interest in offering Ukraine crucial NATO privileges without actual membership.

Trump, who met last week with Vladimir Putin in Alaska, said the Russian leader was willing to accept a Western force of some kind in Ukraine in exchange for concessions from Kyiv. But a statement from the Russian Foreign Ministry insisted that Moscow would reject any NATO troops in Ukraine.

Two of the other most contentious negotiating topics — the redrawing of Ukraine’s borders and the timing of a cease-fire — were left unresolved, our correspondent Michael Schwirtz pointed out. “Both Trump and Zelensky suggested that discussions of a possible cease-fire, along with negotiations over territory, should be conducted in the as-yet hypothetical face-to-face meeting between Zelensky and Putin,” Michael said.

Trump said that steps have been taken to set up a meeting between Zelensky and Putin, which would be followed by another meeting that would include Trump himself.

“At the end of the day, the talks in Washington as well as in Alaska appeared to have offered a chance for all sides to air their grievances and state their positions,” Michael said. “But no side specified what concessions, if any, they would be willing to make — at least publicly.”

For more:

• Hours before Zelensky’s arrived at the White House, Russian strikes killed at least 14 people in Ukraine.

• Putin has proposed that Ukraine cede the Donbas as part of a deal, and Trump said today that “exchanges of territory” would be part of the discussions. But Zelensky doesn’t have the unilateral authority to hand over land.

Trump said he wanted to get rid of mail-in ballots

In a post on social media this morning, just hours before his meeting with the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, Trump said he would lead a movement to eliminate mail-in ballots. Trump, who has himself voted by mail in recent years, then spent a few minutes of the meeting railing against the voting method: “You can never have a real democracy with mail-in ballots,” he declared. “It’s a fraud.”

Trump also said he wanted to get rid of voting machines, which he described as inaccurate and expensive. The president’s comments came after he said that Putin had told him at their summit in Alaska, “Your election was rigged because you have mail-in voting.”

In related news, the right-wing cable channel Newsmax agreed to pay $67 million to Dominion Voting Systems to settle a libel lawsuit over false claims of rigged voting.

Amanda Knox is retelling her story

Grace Van Patten will star as the title character in the Hulu mini-series “The Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox,” which debuts on Wednesday. It’s a fictionalized retelling of Knox’s infamous saga, in which she was convicted and then later acquitted of murder while studying abroad in Italy.

The series is being produced by Knox herself, who said she was encouraged to revisit her story by Monica Lewinsky, who is also a producer on the show.

A billion-dollar game built in a dorm room

Counter-Strike is probably one of the most important video games ever made. It spawned an e-sports vertical that continues to generate billions of dollars, and its deliberate team-based gameplay changed first-person shooter games forever.

But a quarter-century ago, it was just a side project that two college students had cobbled together in their spare time. One of its creators told us how it happened.

For more: The Times is looking back at some of the most influential video games released in 2000. Do you remember the Sega Dreamcast, which briefly captured the spotlight? Or that year’s Legend of Zelda game, which took storytelling to a new level?

Don’t worry, you still have a leg up on these robots

Beijing hosted an Olympics-style sporting event over the weekend in which all of the athletes were robots. The machines sprinted, flipped, punched and jumped with enough dexterity to convince anyone watching that there will come a day when robots can outperform human athletes.

But the event was also a reminder that such a day has not yet arrived. One robot plowed into a human staff member in the middle of a race; another tumbled during a kickboxing match without being touched; and the soccer robots just kept tripping over one another.

Have an advanced evening.

Thanks for reading. I’ll be back on Monday. — Matthew

Philip Pacheco was our photo editor.

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